techniques for building fluency?

Have you looked into Read Naturally? Their web site is readnaturally.com.

Does he know the advanced code? I think fluency comes when decoding becomes automatic. Lots of practice with words and sentences and practice with the advanced code and prefixes and suffixes will help fluency. Repeated reading of a passage does help,especially with that passage but kids need lots of practice decoding on the fly before they are really fluent readers.
Nan

would be a good choice. The first 12 lessons work on specific preskills development, and the next 8 (20 lessons total) work on strategy practice. This program teaches specific skills and strategies for reading text fluently. It is probably most appropriate for someone reading on a 3rd through 6th grade level, although it could be useful even for higher grade levels, I think. The program is very well laid out and easy to use.

Nancy

I agree with nan to a certain extent. We saw a modest improvement in fluency after our son did 4 weeks of seeing stars and its clearly attributable to a big improvement in his decoding. But it didn’t have the fluency impact I was hoping for. Maybe it will come from more practice, but I’d also look into a Great Leaps type of program that specfically targets fluency.

He’s in second grade, and no, his advanced decoding skills are not in place yet. He scored well on a nonsense word test and has ok phonemic awareness. But, he’s disfluent on very simple phrases and sentences like “here it is”—and he had a year of intense “look-say” type sight word instruction (not by me!), so he has automaticity in word lists.

It seems to be an integration of meaning making/word recognition, or an underlying rapid-automatic-naming deficit. Listening comp is not great; he’s getting an s/l eval too. I really appreciate your thoughts—I’m doing some repeated reading drill-type exercizes with him, but feel it’s just a quick fix.

He’s in second grade, and his comp. is very weak, naturally, but word accuracy is technically on grade level (not his rate, of course). Is there a website for the program you mention? Thanks!

http://www.sopriswest.com/rewards

This is a great program, but after re-reading your post and noting that this is a 2nd grader, I’m not sure it would help that much. The website says it is for intermediate and high school level students; however, the teacher’s guide says it is for those who read at a 2nd to 5th grade level. They did note in the TM that those who came into the program with stronger basic decoding skills made the best gains.

Has the child been tested for a visual processing problem? I have found that this is the single most common underlying reason for lack of fluency with text, when decoding skills are in place. A child with a good memory will be improving fluency from repeated readings via memorization of the text. I would suspect that’s why fluency doesn’t transfer to new text.

Although schools can test for visual processing issues, it’s pretty much up to the parents to find a developmental optometrist and pursue vision therapy and/or cognitive training. (VT corrects the sensory level problem, and cognitive training — Audiblox or PACE — develops lagging cognitive skills, such as visual sequencing.) When the vision problem isn’t too severe, just the act of repeatedly reading can, over time, correct some problems such as tracking. When the problem is severe, the underlying vision problem prevents development of fluency. Check out http://www.childrensvision.com for more information about vision.

Nancy

Nancy is absolutely correct.

This is my son’s problem. He still has ocular motor issues. His biggest issue was sustaining the effort to read for prolonged periods. He could hold it together to read and comprehend really difficult short passages but he could not sustain the effort because of his poor ocular muscles.

When he does the exercises such has having him track my finger you can really see this deficit. His eyes jump all over the place. He has an especially hard time moving his eyes slow. When I move my finger fast he can do it. No wonder he loses his place and speeds through the text.
If your eyes are jumping around rather than tracking smoothly it takes a huge effort to read fluently.

Is he fluent with material below his reading level? Are there test scores indicating a RAN deficit?

Repeated readings may be your best option at this time. I know for my son (and he does have a severe RAN deficit), that seemed to help best. First we did Phonographix to get a basic sense of word patterns. This made a huge difference. He went from not being able to retain even basic words to a solid early 2nd grade reading level (he was in 2nd grade at the time). One more thing. We did PG even though he scored quite well on the test they have at the beginning of the book. It made a huge difference because even when he learned to read it was as if he forgot it all the next day. This helped reinforce and keep the word patterns more firmly in his memory.

For repeated readings we used the SRA basic reading series that uses a lot of repetitive words and word patterns. I’m sure there are other books that do this too. I think the repetition was very beneficial in helping develop some fluency. We did use a stopwatch and my son had no problem with this. We started with the first level and then slowly worked up to a certain point.

In addition to repeated readings, I like to do multi-syllable work with him. We decode lists of multi-syllable words on a white board. He has improved with this over time. In fact, oftentimes we don’t need the whiteboard. Sometimes he can read it out. Not always quickly, but I’m hoping that will come in time.

Something I just got in the mail yesterday is “Speed Drills for Decoding Automaticity” by Dr. Phyllis Fischer (I also bought her Concept Cards). This program appears to be designed for children who are specifically having difficulty with orthographic word patterns — which is my son! I originally found out about it in a research paper called “Coaching Reading Fluency in Students with Moderate to Severe Dyslexia” by Shirly R. Bate (you can find this article by doing a search on Google). This program along with repeated readings of decodable texts was used in the study.

By the way, I was led to this research paper by one of the Research Assistants working with Maryanne Wolf on RAVE-O. I believe RAVE-O’s Word Wizards may be designed along the lines of these orthographic speed drills.

I think that one of my son’s main difficulties with reading at this point (early 3rd grade level) is quickly recognizing certain orthographic patterns. At a 2nd to possibly early 3rd grade reading level he can now read with some fluency, but when he comes to certain patterns (vowel teams, long vowels, phonetically irregular words), he loses fluency and gets confused.

If your student has difficulty with orthographic patterns, this might be an appropriate program. It’s published by Oxton House.
The Speed Drill for Decoding Automaticity is basically just a stack of over 150 pages of words, written in text format (but not with sentences, paragraphs or meaning) organized orthographically. It somes with introductory commentary and a chart to record timing. I don’t know how helpful this program will be, but I do like that it’s simple to use!

If you feel there may be some visual issues, there is a book called “Developing Your Child for Success” by Dr. Lane (you can find it by doing a Google search). There’s a lot of visual games and exercises in it.

Hope that helps! Good luck. You sound like a wonderful teacher!!! :-)

I use Rewards with Middle school students. The lessons would be too difficult for a second grade student. You can use any passage for repeated readings but I would get Reading Reflex and do the entire program. Next, I would find some decodable books for each level and practice, practice, and more practice.

I agree with this advice and plan on doing the same thing for my own child. She just is not automatically decoding and therefore has no comprehension. I spent all last weekend looking at decodable books for this age group, so let me know if you want some help!

Janis

Thanks so much for your thoughts. You sound more like a reading specialist (a really, really good one, at that) than a parent! (No offense to parents—I’m one too! Your son is a lucky kid; I wish him well.) The boy I’m working with does have trouble with text below his grade level, with words that he knows automatically in isolation—that’s what’s making me think there’s more to it that simply knowing the words. In fact, he is incredibly disfluent—not just when he comes to an unfamiliar word (I’m not using text with that many for now). I’m going to test him for RAN deficiency next—no scores to indicate anything like that. I’m going to check out the resources you and everyone else mentioned, and continue with the repeated readings in the meantime. He really likes trying to raise his WPM; we also analyze his mistakes, which he’s also very interested in. This is such a great board! It’s a really supportive resource.

Thanks! I haven’t looked into RR or PG, but I see them so often on this board that I will. I’m o-g trained, but I’m always looking for other approaches, too (finances willing!).

I’d love to hear the titles of some of the books you found if it’s not too much trouble! Thanks again for the help.

Here are my notes:

Scholastic has a cute new series for the K-2 crowd called Clifford’s Phonics Fun Pack and now there is at least a #1 set and a #2 set. Both were available on Amazon at @ $10 for 12 little readers per set. I found set 2 at a Scholastic book fair last week and really liked them, so I will order set 1 and any others. I think the Scholastic book clubs may be offering sets beyond #1 and 2, too.

Modern Curriculum Press has a set called Phonics Practice Readers:

http://www.pearsonlearning.com/plearn/html/cat_progseries.cfm?sub_id=S21&grade=-1,12&prog_id=357&imprint_id=IM4

They are small and colorful like the Clifford books but average more like $2 per little book.

Bob Books are early phonics readers for K-1. The illustrations are black and white, but people say they really like them. Amazon and Scholastic have these.

Scholastic has something they call Phonics Chapter books which would look more mature for kids older than K-1. I have not seen the inside test, so I may order some and see what they are like.

Scholastic also has a set of books called Emergent Readers II, which is not really phonics readers, but they are for early readers and have some of the books that PG recommends. Collections like this generally have a good discount. You can see these on Scholastic.com under teacher store. I think only the Clifford sets were on Amazon. I spent my entire weekend looking at books! (I was told that the little square phonics readers by Scholastic are not good).

EPS also has phonics readers with black and white illustrations. SRA has some nice ones with color illustrations. These are both fairly pricey.

Shay (a PG trainer) said she uses the readers that come with Wilson Language. All 12 are only $90.(six for $45)

The other alternative similar to Wilson is ” Language!” which has readers as well. Here is that link:

http://www.language-usa.net/readers.html

My plan is to use either Wilson or Language! readers when teaching, and use the other little books to send home for practice.

Janis

I have the Phonic Readers by Scholastic —the little square ones. They are not as good as Bob books but some of them are good and I got them very cheap ordering through school. Bob Books also by Scholastic are, in my opinion, the best things out there for very early readers. My K has been bringing home different ones than I have so there several sets of them.

I also have some of the EPS Primary Phonics books. They are good but I think I paid $20 for five of them. They are only about 16 pages long with black and white photos so seemed like a lot to me.

Beth

Beth, that is a good point. Sometimes the cheapest way to but these books is in the little book club flyers that Scholastic gives kids at school. I know the Clifford sets have been in there, but I was afraid to buy them until they saw them. But I really like them a lot. Do you think Bob books are too babyish for a second grader? I sort of thought so from looking at them online.

I think the EPS books are now about $30 for a set of 10, and there are about 5 sets. So that is a little more than some others which run more like $1-$2 per book. The Clifford and Bob books are only about $1 each if you buy from Amazon, but they are small books.

Janis

My LD son used them in second grade—that was where his reading was at. I don’t think they are really babyish—just a bit dumb because of the reduced vocabulary. I find them less irritating than some of the PG easy stuff.

Here is the text of one from set 2

Six tom cats sit of the tiptop of a big wall.
The sun will set soon.
E-ow, e-ow, e-ow, all of the cats call. Me-ow, me-ow, the squall.
Max, who is six, sits up in a tree.
Hey, cats, calls Max, What do you see?
But the cats, “Me-ow” is all they will tell.
After a time, the sun did set.

And so on. There are twenty pages of text.

Beth

I had ordered the Scholastic Phonics Book club thru the flyers at school when my dd was in K. We got 3 new books every month and received them from K thru 2nd grade. I think we got 60 books total. It also included a workbook, a tape (that you can read along with) a game and an instruction card that recommended other activities and other books to help reinforce those ‘sound families’ that were in the book. The books got more challenging and had more complex code by the end of the series.

I liked them - they were interesting(fairy tales, science, history, jokes etc.) and I could supplement with Reading Reflex that we were doing at the time. The school also started Houghton Mifflin series and so would have different sound/word patterns every week -but they never reinforced learning those with text that contained what they were learning that week. So I would pull out the series that coordinated with her classroom lessons as well.

It was not cheap tho - I think I spent $20 per month (which adds up after 2.5yrs). I didn’t use alot of the workbooks, games or tapes - I should have - just didn’t have enough time to do it. So part of it was a waste for us.

Hey DEA, have any old phonics readers you’d like to donate to a worthy cause? ;-)

Janis

Beth,

Thanks so much. Perhaps the one I saw was from set one, because it was easier than that. I’ll take another look at them. I really need a good selection of books if I am going to provide meaningful practice along with the PG.

Janis

I already loaned them to one of my neighbors. I was missing one book. I need to round up the workbooks and tapes tho - I’m missing several of those, but know they have to be around my cluttered house somewhere?

Hi Cathy,
The test results should give you a good idea if he has a RAN deficit. One simple way to learn if RAN may be a problem is if a child has hesitancy in letter naming. In fact, from the research I’ve read, this may be one of the best early indicators of RAN deficit and the kids who display this should get more intensive instruction with letters, words, phonics, numbers, etc…

It’s a good thing your student enjoys timed readings and feels positive about his progress. If he does have a severe RAN deficit there’s a chance progress may be slow so don’t be discouraged.

Also, thanks for the kind compliment! I have a lot of admiration and respect for educators. I’ve occassionally thought of going back to college and studying to become a reading specialist. I think making a positive difference in a child’s live would be extremely rewarding. Best of luck to you!

I was just looking though a series I used with my son and noticing what is good and bad about it. I bought the SRA Basic Reading Series (it was something I came across at a teaching supplies store).

What I like about it is it starts very simple. The first book (Level A, part 1) is called “A Pig Can Jig.” All of the stories are extremely simple and repetivie. For example, the first has a word list of “man, Dan, ran, fan, can” and a box to the side shows the words “I, the.” The beginning of the first story starts like this, “I ran. Dan ran. The man ran. I can fan. Dan can fan. The man can fan. I can fan the man. The man can fan Dan. I can fan Dan. Can Dan fan?” I think you get the idea! Great illustrations by Richard Scarry. This book is 64 pages and basically only runs through short “a” “i” and some irregular words.

By the end of Level B the book has gone over all the short vowels. Although more variation, this book still uses the same repetivie style. In fact, Level C (which is all I bought up to) is similar in this respect as well. The word patterns in this book are endings like “ll, ss, ff, zz, dd nn, gg, ck, nd, nt, st, sk, mp ft, it, lf, lp, lk, ld, pt…etc…” along with beginnings like “fl, sl, cl, pl, gl, bl, sk,…etc…” Just to give you an idea, this book starts out “Miss Hull had six pet cats—Muff, Cuff, Huff, Puff, Ruff and E. Nuff. Miss Hull had the cats in a pen. Miss Hull fed the cats well. The cats got big, but the pen did not….”

I think using this for timed readings helped my son although I haven’t seen the other phonic readers mentioned here so I’m guessing there is better material out there. I hope to take a look at some of the books mentioned here. I know for my son we are at a point where we could use something that mixes short/long vowels and uses more vowel teams, r-controlled vowels, soft c’s patterns like that. If anyone knows of a good series for this I’d love to hear about it. I’m going to try and look at some of the more advanced readers in this SRA series to see if they might be appropriate.

Once we get this down then we can fully focus on multi-syllables, although I do always try to include a little multi-syllable work every day. I find a good mix of instruction seems to work well with my son at this level. (a little reapeated reading and some stretching with more difficult reading — along with a dry erase board for examining word patterns and breaking multi-syllable words down. Also, occassionaly going over multi-syllable word lists).

There is a great site on line www.readinga-z.com. It costs $49.00 to join for the year and they have over 300 hundred books to download. All of them are leveled and there is a complete set of decodable books. These books have fairly good stories for decodable books plus they don’t look quite so babyish. I use them with my middle schoolers. I think kids need lots of practice decoding truly decodable books. may early readers are not decodable. They contain too many sight words and story specific vocabulary words. Look for decodable readers.
Nan

Thnaks, Nan. I do have that site in mind. Just trying to figure out when I could print all those books! I have a very slow deskjet printer at school!

Janis

I use the Reading Naturally Program. It works great for a variety of problem readers with fluency. I have been using it for three years now and I am sold.

My son just started using Reading Naturally. He has done PG and has decoding skills. However, he reads too fast, skips words, and stumbles over long unfamiliar words. Does Reading Naturally help with this type of problem?

I think it would help if the teacher makes sure the child knows when there is an error. I have found this program to work very nicely with many readers.
Michelle